Carette of Sark eBook

“And how far does this go?” asked my grandfather,
trying to see the end.

“Right through the Eperquerie. It runs
into a water cave there. Its mouth is below tide
level, but sometimes the light comes through.
If you want brandy, Phil, broach a keg. If you
want more tobacco, open a package.”

“And water?” asked Carette.

“About fifty yards along there on the right
in a hollow place. You can’t miss it.”

“Keep your hearts up, my children,” said
my grandfather. “You will be quite safe
here. Our work lies outside, and we must get back.
George will come to you as soon as the way is clear.
God be with you!”

“You are quite sure there are no ghosts about,
Uncle George?” asked Carette in a half-scared
whisper, for she was still a devout believer in all
such things.

“I’ve never seen the ghost of one,”
said Uncle George, with a laugh. “Here,
Phil! Take this!” and he handed me from
his pocket an old flint-lock pistol, of which I knew
he had a pair. “You won’t need it,
but it makes one feel bolder to carry it. If
you see any ghosts, blaze away at them, and if you
hit them we’ll nail their bodies up outside to
scare away the rest.”

Then, still laughing, to cheer us, I think, they bade
us good-bye and went off down the tunnel.

Carette was already spreading out the hay, which Uncle
George and my grandfather had got through the narrow
ways with difficulty. Their voices died away
and we were alone, and I was so heavy that, from sitting
on the hay, I rolled over on it, and was asleep before
I lay flat.

CHAPTER XXXIII

HOW LOVE COULD SEE IN THE DARK

Carette says I slept through three days and nights,
but that is only one of her little humours. When
I woke, however, I was in infinitely better case than
before, and as she herself was fast asleep she may
have been so all the time.

It was quite dark. The candle had either burned
out or she had extinguished it. But in the extraordinary
silence of that still place I could hear her soft
breathing not far away, and I lay a long time listening
to it. It was so calm and regular and trustful,
as though no harmful and threatening things were in
the world, that it woke a new spirit of confident hope
in me, and I lay and listened, and thought sweet warm
thoughts of her.

It seemed a long time, and yet not one whit too long,
before the soft breathing lost its evenness, and at
last I could not hear it at all, and knew she was
waking. And presently she stirred, and after a
time she said softly—­

“Phil ... are you awake?”

“Yes, my dear,” I said, sitting up, and
feeling first for her, for love of the feel of her,
and then in my pockets for my flint and steel.

“How still it is, and how very dark!”
she whispered.

“I’ll soon see how you’re looking;”
and my sparks caught in the tinder and I lit a candle.